PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN ADVERTISING

Advertisement is one of the major media that affect our daily life consciously and unconsciously. It is also responsible to play a significant role in shaping the society in a much broader perspective. There is a lot of dispute on the issue that whether advertisements depict what is prevalent in the society or the society embraces in itself what is portrayed in the advertisements and other media. Over the last few decades, there has been a great socio-cultural change in the society especially in the context of role and position of women in the society. There are increasing numbers of women pursuing careers of their choice, changing role in the family structure, negative attitude towards sex-role stereotypes etc. But has the representation of women in advertisements changed over a period of time? Or does it still confirm to some traditional notions about women and their role in the society? Such stereotypes projected about women go a long way in deciding what the society thinks about women and how the society treats women in the long run. The present paper is an attempt to study the different projections of women roles in various print and audio-video advertisements in India and how does it define the social acceptance of women in the society and the treatment they are met with.